I've often wondered why aircraft cabins don't have cameras monitoring the pax. Both for cabin attendants to monitor, and also that generally people behave better in public, when they know they are being watched. Trains, buses, trams in most countries have them. Would also help the fight deck crew to better assess any security issues in the back, without needing to get cabin crew to play immediate intermediary.

Imagine so simple a notion as cameras in the cockpit with their record being fed in to uprated Flight data recorders . The whole world would have been able to see what the pilots were switching on an off in the Ethiopian crash .

Imagine so simple a notion as cameras in the cockpit with their record being fed in to uprated Flight data recorders

Actually not that simple: video (especially if it is high definition) would require high bandwidth cabling all the way to the recorder at the back, plus large amounts of storage depending on the archive period. All of that would increase the weight of the aircraft, which means less pax i.e. less revenue. As previously suggested, real-time video monitoring (i.e. no storage) would be useful to check/confirm causes of issues/alarms experienced during flight.

Another option would be to download video to earth-based storage via satellite, but that would obviously be expensive.

Then wait for the people who will scream it is an invasion of their privacy to have cameras monitoring the cabin or cockpit...........Now that will be more the restrictive point in ever putting cameras in.

Somewhere out there!
Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive.

Then wait for the people who will scream it is an invasion of their privacy to have cameras monitoring the cabin or cockpit...........Now that will be more the restrictive point in ever putting cameras in.

I think there was a push to put them in the cockpit quite a while ago and the cockpit crews vetoed it. And they have a very good point. There's no way I would want to have big daddy watching my every move 24/7. BUT, if it had an erase button like the CVR, would it be such a big deal?

Can you still erase the CVR at the end of each flight? and do pilots normally do it?

I am sure we would all love to see what was going on in in the cockpits of both those Boeing prangs.

Imagine so simple a notion as cameras in the cockpit with their record being fed in to uprated Flight data recorders

Actually not that simple: video (especially if it is high definition) would require high bandwidth cabling all the way to the recorder at the back, plus large amounts of storage depending on the archive period. All of that would increase the weight of the aircraft, which means less pax i.e. less revenue. As previously suggested, real-time video monitoring (i.e. no storage) would be useful to check/confirm causes of issues/alarms experienced during flight.

Another option would be to download video to earth-based storage via satellite, but that would obviously be expensive.

So how then does the in-flight-entertainment system store 100s of high def movies and at every seat? Including external camera views for pax to watch?

Can you still erase the CVR at the end of each flight? and do pilots normally do it?

Not normally erased. Ops manual makes Commander responsible for ensuring FDR and CVR are not erased after a reportable occurrence.

Boeing procedure/conditions to be able to erase CVR , used to be :

1) Park Brake set
2) Engines shut down
3) On APU or external power

I never knew of anyone that used to erase the CVR after flight, but it was "rumoured" that airlines in the USA adopted this procedure to protect the crew from "vindictive" actions by their management.

I doubt whether CVR recordings would ever be used by management against any of their pilots (disciplinary/vindictive) due to agreements between Pilots union (ALPA-SA) and management.
Only to be used, as mentioned above, if necessary, after a reportable occurrence, that requires formal investigation.

sometimes we suffer a bit from C.R.A.F.T. sickness..Can't Remember A F@#%ing Thing

Can you still erase the CVR at the end of each flight? and do pilots normally do it?

Not normally erased. Ops manual makes Commander responsible for ensuring FDR and CVR are not erased after a reportable occurrence.

Boeing procedure/conditions to be able to erase CVR , used to be :

1) Park Brake set
2) Engines shut down
3) On APU or external power

I never knew of anyone that used to erase the CVR after flight, but it was "rumoured" that airlines in the USA adopted this procedure to protect the crew from "vindictive" actions by their management.

I doubt whether CVR recordings would ever be used by management against any of their pilots (disciplinary/vindictive) due to agreements between Pilots union (ALPA-SA) and management.
Only to be used, as mentioned above, if necessary, after a reportable occurrence, that requires formal investigation.

Hmmmmm! I have just finished reading a fascinating true story about how a CVR was used against a pilot. SCAPEGOAT is a $9 Kindle book which is well written and brilliantly researched. I can thoroughly recommend it. Here's the blurb:

This is the kind of case the Board has never had to deal with-a head-on collision between the credibility of a flight crew versus the airworthiness of the aircraft." NTSB Investigator-in-Charge Leslie Dean Kampschror

On April 4, 1979, a Boeing 727 with 82 passengers and a crew of 7 rolled over and plummeted from an altitude of 39,000 feet to within seconds of crashing were it not for the crew's actions to save the plane. The cause of the unexplained dive was the subject of one of the longest NTSB investigations at that time.

While the crew's efforts to save TWA 841 were initially hailed as heroic, that all changed when safety inspectors found twenty-one minutes of the thirty-minute cockpit voice recorder tape blank. The captain of the flight, Harvey "Hoot" Gibson, subsequently came under suspicion for deliberately erasing the tape in an effort to hide incriminating evidence. The voice recorder was never evaluated for any deficiencies. From that moment on, the investigation was focused on the crew to the exclusion of all other evidence. It was an investigation based on rumors, innuendos, and speculation. Eventually the NTSB, despite sworn testimony to the contrary, blamed the crew for the incident by having improperly manipulated the controls, leading to the dive.

This is the story of a NTSB investigation gone awry and one pilot's decade-long battle to clear his name.

Hmmmmm! I have just finished reading a fascinating true story about how a CVR was used against a pilot. SCAPEGOAT is a $9 Kindle book which is well written and brilliantly researched. I can thoroughly recommend it. Here's the blurb:

This is the kind of case the Board has never had to deal with-a head-on collision between the credibility of a flight crew versus the airworthiness of the aircraft." NTSB Investigator-in-Charge Leslie Dean Kampschror

On April 4, 1979, a Boeing 727 with 82 passengers and a crew of 7 rolled over and plummeted from an altitude of 39,000 feet to within seconds of crashing were it not for the crew's actions to save the plane. The cause of the unexplained dive was the subject of one of the longest NTSB investigations at that time.

While the crew's efforts to save TWA 841 were initially hailed as heroic, that all changed when safety inspectors found twenty-one minutes of the thirty-minute cockpit voice recorder tape blank. The captain of the flight, Harvey "Hoot" Gibson, subsequently came under suspicion for deliberately erasing the tape in an effort to hide incriminating evidence. The voice recorder was never evaluated for any deficiencies. From that moment on, the investigation was focused on the crew to the exclusion of all other evidence. It was an investigation based on rumors, innuendos, and speculation. Eventually the NTSB, despite sworn testimony to the contrary, blamed the crew for the incident by having improperly manipulated the controls, leading to the dive.

This is the story of a NTSB investigation gone awry and one pilot's decade-long battle to clear his name.

jim

That one definitely counts as a reportable incident
the unexplained dive was the rumored pulling of the LE devices CB and then selecting flap 1 to increase wing area, followed by inadvertent resetting CB by unknown means

sometimes we suffer a bit from C.R.A.F.T. sickness..Can't Remember A F@#%ing Thing

Hmmmmm! I have just finished reading a fascinating true story about how a CVR was used against a pilot. SCAPEGOAT is a $9 Kindle book which is well written and brilliantly researched. I can thoroughly recommend it. Here's the blurb:

This is the kind of case the Board has never had to deal with-a head-on collision between the credibility of a flight crew versus the airworthiness of the aircraft." NTSB Investigator-in-Charge Leslie Dean Kampschror

On April 4, 1979, a Boeing 727 with 82 passengers and a crew of 7 rolled over and plummeted from an altitude of 39,000 feet to within seconds of crashing were it not for the crew's actions to save the plane. The cause of the unexplained dive was the subject of one of the longest NTSB investigations at that time.

While the crew's efforts to save TWA 841 were initially hailed as heroic, that all changed when safety inspectors found twenty-one minutes of the thirty-minute cockpit voice recorder tape blank. The captain of the flight, Harvey "Hoot" Gibson, subsequently came under suspicion for deliberately erasing the tape in an effort to hide incriminating evidence. The voice recorder was never evaluated for any deficiencies. From that moment on, the investigation was focused on the crew to the exclusion of all other evidence. It was an investigation based on rumors, innuendos, and speculation. Eventually the NTSB, despite sworn testimony to the contrary, blamed the crew for the incident by having improperly manipulated the controls, leading to the dive.

This is the story of a NTSB investigation gone awry and one pilot's decade-long battle to clear his name.

jim

That one definitely counts as a reportable incident
the unexplained dive was the rumored pulling of the LE devices CB and then selecting flap 1 to increase wing area, followed by inadvertent resetting CB by unknown means

It was indeed RUMOURED as you say but after reading the book I have serious doubts about that. There were massive uncommanded rudder movements at the start of the trouble, and the hydraulic pack that caused these was exactly the same one as used on 737 that had the same problem. Boeing, TWA and the NTSB were doing their best to blame the crew because that was the easy way out.